


And if we were to try

by cadoodle



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, I promise!, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 22:15:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1915854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadoodle/pseuds/cadoodle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is an asshole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stiles.

 

 

“Time heals all wounds. And if it doesn't, you name them something other than wounds and agree to let them stay.” 

― Emma Forest ,  _Your Voice In My Head_

 

Stiles is an asshole.

No, no, don’t feel bad about it. He knows it well enough, as does everyone who meets him. He knows it the best in fact. Scott knows it maybe second best, and his Dad, despite his dear love for his awful brat of a son, still comes in a close third.

It’s why Lydia never feels particularly bad turning him down, or making out with his best friend, because what does Stiles do? Stiles chains Scott to a radiator (part of the plan) and gives him a doggy bowl to drink out of (definitely not part of the plan). Even knowing that Scott is suffering from some serious lunar hormonal crap and would never do this to him under normal circumstances, Stiles still makes a point of exacting his revenge when his friend is at his weakest. 

Because that is what assholes do.

Once, a therapist told Stiles what he lacked was consideration for others. Compassion, that was the word. Put in simpler terms, if Stiles saw a bird dying on the street, Stiles would not likely stop to help it. Well duh, Stiles thought as he looked over his file his father had tossed in the trash, before he learned it was better to shred important documents left in the house with Stiles. Of course he wouldn’t help the damn bird.

Likely, Stiles’ Dad had contested this. Stiles was the most compassionate child he’d ever met. He practically adopted Scott when his parents separated, making his best friend spend every night at their house and making bacon and eggs (that his father was not allowed to touch, let alone eat) every morning. Further back, when his mother was in the hospital, all Stiles did was attend to her every need. He’d hold the straw up to her lips if she needed water. If the pain was too much, he’d alert the nurses long before she could. He was the one with her when she died, holding her hand through it all because _someone had to be there, Dad,_ I _had to be there._

His Dad believes in Stiles. His Dad is not there when he suggests killing Jackson.

Scott is only slightly horrified when Stiles throws it out there, because Scott knows Stiles. Stiles is not kidding, and Stiles is ready, because Jackson? Jackson _means nothing_ to Stiles. Jackson is a sack of shit that bullied Stiles for ten years of his miserable sixteen year old life, and now Jackson isn’t even Jackson anymore. Jackson is a psychopathic murdering lizard thing that wouldn’t hesitate to slice their throats open if it wasn’t locked up in that police van, his _Dad’s_ police van, so yeah. Stiles is okay with finishing off the Jackson husk and calling it a day.

He is still ready to do it when Lydia throws herself at him, sobbing. But he doesn’t, because Lydia _does_ mean something to him.

He hits the bastard with the jeep instead, and because he is an asshole he hopes that hurt. It didn’t. Damn it.

He leaves the scene without a word, without even a soft ‘hooray’, because his cheek is throbbing and he’s incredibly tired and there is nothing to celebrate. His Dad is yelling at him immediately for leaving, even if it was something for Lydia, _damn it Stiles you could have a concussion or something, did you even think of that?_ but later he comes in with a first aid kit and gently rubs ointment on Stiles’ cheek and Stiles closes his eyes and thinks _this is why._

Stiles loves three people in this world, and he smiles and doesn’t give a damn about the rest. Stiles loved a fourth, but she died and now, he finds, it is hard to love, so he doesn’t bother trying. Instead he protects the ones he does, protects them so fervently it irritates them sometimes, but he _can’t stop_. They are the only ones he cares about. 

Erica tells him about how much she wanted to be his friend in the library and there is a moment where he wonders what that would be like, if he had let her into his life. If he had sat down with Boyd at the lunch table, instead of bartering him for his keys and leaving him to be by himself, alone, like every other day. But he can’t be her Batman any more than he can care about Isaac’s poor damaged soul when he has yet another werewolf on his hands that can’t control himself. The kid that could’ve extended a hand to the little blonde girl that shook sometimes was long gone, buried in the ground with his mother. He didn’t have any room in his life for her -- couldn’t _make_ any room for her -- and she knew it. 

The therapist is wrong. Stiles does not lack compassion. He lacks love.

 


	2. Derek.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek is not an asshole. Stiles just doesn't care.

“The human heart has a way of making itself large again even after it's been broken into a million pieces.”  
― Robert James Waller, _The Bridges of Madison County_

Derek flits in and out of Stiles’ life almost amusingly. He’s there and then he’s not, he’s useful but mostly he’s not. He’s here to save the day but he’s getting his ass kicked. It’s almost entertaining, how much of a failure one man can be.

What Stiles lacks in natural empathy he makes up for with pity. He meets a drunk girl whose girlfriend died because she was _ritually sacrificed_ and he hands her a bottle of water and tells her drink it so that _maybe_ she gets less of a hangover the next morning -- this is, of course, after he has made out with the drunk girl whose girlfriend was ritually sacrificed. He doesn’t kiss her out of pity, he kisses her because she’s hot and kissing him (asshole), but there’s a lot of pity at play when he hands her the water.

Stiles pities Derek a lot. Losing your family in a horrible, entirely planned, fire? Sucks. Your sister killed and your uncle a resurrected psychopath who killed said sister? Majorly sucks. Your first girlfriend dead because of what was supposed to be a romantic gesture gone horribly, horribly wrong? Welcome to suckville, population: Derek.

But there’s a reason Stiles pounds and screams in fury at Derek’s door until the man lets him in, which is not as long a wait as he feels it is, but he still throws a left hook that Derek deftly dodges with a disgruntled look on his face.

“Stiles wha-”

“Of all the vagina you could’ve had, you had to stick it in the crazy one?” He yells, scrubbing furiously at his face and ignoring the look on Derek’s face as it transforms from angry to blank in a matter of seconds. He stalks away as Scott natters at Derek the events of the evening, trying to compose himself before he completely loses it because his Dad, _his Dad is gone. Lydia almost died within the hour and now she has his father._

He screams again, startling both Derek and Scott. Derek looks like he wants to say something, mouth open but face still studiously blank, and Stiles still wants to land one good punch on him. But Jennifer is already at the door and Scott is grabbing him by the arm, drawing him into the shadows.

Later, he knows it’s not Derek’s fault. He knows, in fact, that this is just another crummy thing on the List of Crummy Things that Happen to Derek Hale. He knows all of this, but he doesn’t care enough. There’s a reason he doesn’t put it gently but instead throws Jennifer’s evil vagina at Derek’s face. That reason is Stiles is an asshole.

It’s why now -- when he picks up the phone and Scott tells him that Kate seduced Derek when he was younger and might do it again -- Stiles’ only response is to run down the hallway back to check on Derek. It makes sense -- it makes so much sense -- and it’s so, so so so bad. It means so many bad things, it means that Derek got betrayed not once, but twice by women he probably loved, it means Derek probably had an indirect hand in his family’s death, but it also explains so many things. Why Derek was so quick to believe them when Jennifer turned out to be evil. Why Derek kept to himself. Why Derek always wanted to help the oppressed, the abused, the self-loathing.

It doesn’t matter how much sense it makes, or how much it explains, because Derek is already gone. And Stiles, again, does not stop to worry about what Kate will do to Derek, or how she is toying with him yet again. All he cares about is what Derek might do _because_ of Kate. Because he thinks he loves her.

Stiles is not surprised when Derek comes to their rescue. Stiles is not surprised to see him help Alpha McCall, a person he, according to his current memories, met only earlier today. Because he finally gets it.

Stiles _is_ surprised by his reaction when he sees Derek, older Derek. Because Stiles, for a moment that does not fade, does not let up but just sinks deeper, deep into his heart and rests its truth against his veins, finds Derek’s yellow eyes to be one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen.

He is...happy, for Derek. Happy that the man has finally gotten something, been rewarded for what he is, for _who_ he is.

Because Derek is the man who sits for hours under Scott’s house, keeping watch for japanese demons. Derek is the man who saves two alphas-turned-betas simply because he was there, even after they killed one of his own. Derek is the man who turns three teenagers into wolves not because he’s trying to take advantage of them, but because he’s trying to save them.

And Stiles is the asshole who mocks him for it.

Derek is -- he’s everything Stiles isn’t. He keeps trying, keeps coming back, keeps -- he is so full, full where Stiles is empty. Derek would bring the bird home. Derek would nurse it to its last breath.

And Stiles is wrong. Stiles is so, so wrong. He lacks everything: compassion, love, empathy...but above all, he lacks hope.

Derek is the most hopeful person Stiles has ever met.

His eyes shine golden in the night and Stiles has to look away.

They’re blinding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you guess what the last chapter is named? 
> 
> Come follow me and send me prompts at confessedlyfannish.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> Come follow me and send me prompts at confessedlyfannish.tumblr.com


End file.
